


here's a concept - i love you (and you love me back)

by MarsSoccer



Category: Men's Football RPF
Genre: A fair bit of angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dialouge Heavy, Internalised Homophobia, M/M, Miscommunication, or at least a lack of communication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:29:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22963927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarsSoccer/pseuds/MarsSoccer
Summary: dele kisses eric. eric kisses him back.it should be simple but it's not.
Relationships: Dele Alli/Eric Dier
Comments: 2
Kudos: 56





	here's a concept - i love you (and you love me back)

**Author's Note:**

> hi! it's been a while since i've written anything but i really wanted to get this out for you guys. it's not exactly how i wanted to be but if i kept in my drafts any longer i don't think it would have seen the light of day. anyway! i hope you guys enjoy this and as always kudos and comments are very much appreciated xx

If a genie was to appear in front of Dele right now and promise to grant him one wish, Dele would ask to be happy. There’s nothing he wants more. He’s well aware that he’s living the dream – as a footballer whose earning millions of pounds a year, there’s not many ways his life could get better. If anyone had told him as a child this was what awaited him, he would have been ecstatic. He’d say doesn’t understand why he doesn’t feel that way now but that would be a lie and Sally brought him up better than that. The truth is simple - for all that money can buy, it can’t buy him love and what a kicker that is. Dele’s got enough money to buy whatever in the world he wants except the one thing he craves more than anything. What Dele wants is the love of a certain Eric Dier, but he can’t have it and he knows it. He’s known this since the moment he started playing football professionally – being gay was bad enough but being gay and acting on a crush with your teammate was career suicide, so he’d sucked it up for years and was prepared to continue doing that until the end of time.

Until tonight.

Dele doesn’t even know why his heart decided that tonight was the night he had to act on all his feelings. There’s nothing really special happening; he’s at Eric’s house and Eric’s cooking him dinner which is a tradition the two of them came up with long ago. Maybe it’s the fact that Eric looks _especially_ domestic today because one minute he’s watching Eric plating up their dinner and the next he’s kissing Eric and Eric is kissing him back. His brain subsequently short-circuits, then reboots and Dele doesn’t think he’s pulled back from a kiss so quickly in his life.

 _Shit_ , he thinks, _time for damage control_.

*

Dele is sitting on the end of the counter determinedly not looking at him, his fingers thumbing over the exposed skin on his wrist.

“That was,” Eric starts, before stopping and taking a deep breath. “Was there any reason for that?”

“Dunno.” The reply is sharp and defensive, and Eric can already feel the frown lines start to appear on his face. 

“People don’t just kiss people for no reason, Del. You’ve got to know.”

“I don’t have to know anything, Eric. I said I don’t know. Just fucking drop it.” There’s a tense silence that falls between them before Dele whispers under his breath but a still audible _‘it wasn’t supposed to be like this._ ’

Eric knows Dele didn’t mean for him to hear that but he can see the vulnerability that Dele always tries to hide starting to shine through and his feet move of their own accord, moving him closer to Dele before he sits himself beside Dele on the tabletop, the cold marble beneath him leeching his body heat.

Nobody speaks for a while, Eric not knowing what to say and Dele not knowing how to say it. There are emotions inside of him that he’s never acknowledged in all his 23 years of existence and while he doesn’t really want to start now, Eric deserves to know. He needs to know.

“You make me happy,” he starts, “really happy. It scares me how happy you make me because I always push people that make me happy away and I thought I could be happy just having you like this, but I can’t. I’m not.” Dele stops speaking and instead, pushes his hands through his hair as he closes his eyes tightly and takes a deep breath. He can do this. He can do this.

“I think I’m in love with you.”

Eric is stunned. He stares at Dele unblinking, his mouth opening only to immediately shut as he tries to work out what to say. He doesn’t get the chance. Dele takes his silence as rejection and is up and sprinting out the door with a half-mumbled apology spilling out of his mouth.

The door slams shut behind him and something inside Eric breaks. 

*

Things change after that night. Dele is determined to pretend the night in questions never happened and that has a less that positive effect on their relationship – it has become so strained that Eric wonders if it even exists anymore. Eric is trying to fix it and tell Dele how he really feels but it seems like Dele is working twice as hard to avoid him. Every time he tries to talk to Dele, he’s always got some excuse to leave and sometimes he doesn’t try to give Eric an excuse - he just gets up and leaves. It’s frustrating and that frustration is starting to bleed into his performances on the pitch and as much as he tries to keep his work and private life separate, he can’t this time. Dele is a part of every aspect of his life and for the first time in his life, it’s a curse rather than a blessing. Eric doesn’t know how to feel about that. 

*

When Dele gets out of the shower after their loss to Chelsea, the changing room is almost empty except for one person. Eric is sat in the corner of the room fully dressed, playing on his phone but looks up the instance Dele walks in. He’s been waiting for him. There’s a tension between the two of them that Dele has never felt before and it makes his chest hurt. _How had things got so fucked up?_

“You didn’t wait for me to reply that night.”

Dele scoffs, before moving towards his things and staring to get dressed. “I didn’t really feel like hearing your rejection speech. Still don’t.”

There’s a few beats of silence before Eric replies, “I wasn’t going to reject you Del. If you’d just waited a couple minutes longer that night, you would have found out how much I care for you. Luckily, I’m a generous man so you get to find out right now.”

Eric has moved closer to him since he first started speaking and Dele can feel his body heat behind him. He doesn’t dare take a breath. He almost jumps out of his skin when Eric presses a kiss to the nape of his neck, but Eric doesn’t let it deter him. He continues to press a trail of kisses, each one moving him closer to Dele’s lips until he’s hovering just above them. His eyes ask what his mouth doesn’t. _Can I?_

He’s not sure who moves first but suddenly Eric’s lips are on his and Dele can’t imagine doing anything but this. Everything is falling into place and he feels so stupid for thinking that Eric doesn’t love him. When they finally break apart, Eric smiling at him and Dele can’t help but smile back.

 _Finally,_ he thinks, _my chance to be_ _happy._

**Author's Note:**

> feel free to hit me up on tumblr where we can scream about spurs together - @onlyscorestapins


End file.
